Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

In an electric motor a mechanical load put upon it so great as to prevent economical working. One effect of such a load is to make the armature run so slowly as to unduly reduce the counter-electro-motive force and hence to permit so much current to pass through the coils as to heat them, perhaps injuriously. In this case the production of heat implies the waste of energy.

Examples of overload in a Sentence

When it comes to taking chances, some people like to play poker or shoot dice; other people prefer to parachute jump, go rhino hunting, or climb ice floes, while still others engage in crime or marriage. But I like to get drunk and drive like a fool. Name me, if you can, a better feeling than the one you get when you're half a bottle of Chivas in the bag with a gram of coke up your nose, and a teen-age lovely pulling off her tube top in the next seat over while you're going a hundred miles an hour down a suburban sidestreet. You'd have to watch the entire Mexican air force crash-land in a liquid petroleum gas storage facility to match this kind of thrill. If you ever have much more fun than that, you'll die of pure sensory overload, I'm here to tell you.